


Desert Beauty

by icandrawamoth



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Badass Rey, Character Study, Desert, Gen, Jakku, Nature, POV Rey (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 08:10:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10080830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/pseuds/icandrawamoth
Summary: Sure, she is attractive physically: long and lean, captivating hazel eyes, graceful limbs – but that's not all. She is also poetry in motion.





	

As she sits eating her meager rations against the behemoth (called an AT-AT, she knows, a machine of war, designed for death, now her home), Rey imagines how the desert is beautiful.

A visitor, someone who didn't know Jakku, might think so. Rey considers the dunes, the setting sun, the way it strikes off of them in golden rays. There's no breeze; everything is hot. Mirages shimmer in the distance, luring the unwary or uninformed.

There's barely any wildlife or plantlife in this part of the desert, mostly just scavengers and the rare merchant like Unkar Plutt, sometimes a beast that's been brought in from offplanet wandering around. The most striking thing to see, Rey thinks, is the space battle debris. The crashed X-wings and TIE fighters and the massive hulk of the Super Star Destroyer _Inflictor_. That's the real awe-inspiring thing. Though few have dared to see the truly impressive parts – the sideways corridors and ghostly bulkheads of the deserted interior Rey has scoured over the years.

What the young woman doesn't realize, even in that thought, is another thing a visitor to Jakku might find beautiful – _her_. Sure, she is attractive physically: long and lean, captivating hazel eyes, graceful limbs – but that's not all. She is also poetry in motion. Every day she practices with her staff, without a second thought of what she looks like – forms imperfect but effective, ones that work for her, the lines of her body strong and taught with hidden power. She may look delicate, but she can take care of herself.

An innocent child, abandoned to an inhospitable planet, she has learned to fend for herself, to survive but also to thrive. She has a purpose: she waits, for a family she believes will return. And that, too, her patience, her drive, is beautiful.

Rey is hard, but parts of her are still soft. Inside, she still holds innocence and wonder. She gazes at the desert and imagines oceans, a desert of water the only thing she can compare it to. She images rain – _water actually falling from the sky!_ \- storms, even. And _snow_. She's read about that, though she doubts she'll ever see. Maybe when her family comes for her and takes her away.

She believes in goodness, too, kindness in return for kindness, though she rarely sees it.

The wind glares into Rey's eyes as she finishes her food, scraping the last bits from the flimsy disposable container. She snorts to herself as she gathers her things and heads inside her home. Yes, she decides, it would be foolish for any visitor to decide Jakku is beautiful.

Not that Jakku often gets visitors at all.

 


End file.
